Miniature painting by Isaac Oliver of the head of Christ, watercolour on vellum. Great Britain, probably after ca. 1610.

Miniature painting of the head of Christ in an oval frame.

Painting of the head of a man with shoulder-length hair, turned to left, his head turned slightly to the front and his gaze cast down.

COLLECTIONS: Dr Richard Mead (1673-1754); recorded by George Vertue between 1736 and 1741 (Notebooks, IV, Walpole Society, XXIV, 1934-35, p. 187); recorded in Musei Meadiani Pars Altera, Langford, 1755 under the section Picturae Minori Formae: “Christi caput longa caesarie falvescente promissa barbe et oculis occlusis, cui gratias omnes divinas circumfluit artiflex. Isaaci Oliver celberrimi pictoris opus praestantissimum” (in the British Library’s Life of Dr. Richard Mead. Catalogue of Dr. Mead’s Library, Museum etc, London, 1754-55); sold on the fourth day of the Mead sale, 14th March 1755 (lot 38); “Head of our saviour very capital, by Isaac Oliver”; purchased by Margaret Cavendish Harley, Duchess of Portland (d. 1785); op. cit, loc. Cit.); sold by auction by Mr. Skinner & Co. 24th April 1786 and following days, 24th May (lot 2947): “A remarkable fine MINIATURE HEAD of OUR SAVIOUR by Isaac Oliver, set in gold. Nothing can exceed the gracefulness, benevolence, and meekness, expressed in this picture. N.B. It was purchased out of the well-known Collection of the late Dr. Mead”; purchased by George 5th Earl of Stamford; sold by the 10th Earl of Stamford, Christie’s 3rd March 1931 (lot 25); purchased for the V&A.

This miniature is quite unlike anything else that Isaac Oliver is known to have painted. The image is built up entirely in terms of light and shade, stippled with tiny flecks of paint, without the definitive outline that had been the ideal of Nicholas Hilliard and other early miniature painters. Oliver is here striving to copy the effects of Italian Baroque painting, with its misty religiosity. This miniature was in the collection of the famous 18th-century collector Dr Richard Mead, and was particularly admired at that time for the soft-focus effect of its extraordinary stipple technique, which was reminiscent of the work of the Italian artist Antonio Correggio (1489-1534). When it was painted, however, there was little interest among English patrons for anything other than portraiture, and one can only speculate for whom such a work would have been intended.

P.15-1931